


Band Gap

by Alette



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Blood and Violence, Fake Technology, Flirting, Gun Violence, I Do Not Know Technology, Literally So Many Bad Descriptions of Technology, M/M, Missions Gone Wrong, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, This is Cute and then it is Bad, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:40:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25333312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alette/pseuds/Alette
Summary: You called him babe, mouths Ten.Xiaojun feels himself go beet red.No I didn’t, he mouths back.“You did,” Kun says from across the room.Hendery goes on dangerous missions, and Xiaojun is nothing more than the voice in his ear, or so Xiaojun tells himself. But then a mission goes wrong, and everything changes.
Relationships: Wong Kun Hang | Hendery/Xiao De Jun | Xiao Jun
Comments: 133
Kudos: 646





	1. Connection 1

**Author's Note:**

> Me: let's write something cute and flirty!  
> The gremlin that lives in my brain: okay but _what if_ —
> 
> This was supposed to be for xiaodery week day 4: action/adventure. Obviously i missed the deadline but i hope you'll all like it regardless.
> 
> There is blood and violence and very colourful language in this. Let me know if i should bump the rating to an M! This level of violence doesn't warrant the warning for my own tastes but i'm still adding it just in case. Also please lmk if i should tag anything else! I am very bad at tagging and honestly i have no idea what this monster has become. 
> 
> EDIT: second chapter definitely warrants the M rating. It's been subsequently changed.
> 
> Thanks for giving this fic a try!

“Fifteen feet, coming up on your left. It’s a sharp turn. There should be a staircase at the end.”

“I see it, I see it. You’re sure it’s this way?”

Xiaojun checks the map he has pulled up on another screen. “I’m sure,” he says. “What, you don’t trust me?”

“If I didn’t trust you I’d be dead,” says Hendery, and Xiaojun can hear the grin in his voice. He grins too. “Any incoming?”

“Lucas and Yangyang are taking care of them all downstairs, don’t worry,” says Xiaojun. He glances over to the next computer, to where Ten is seated bathed in the blue of the screen in front of him, and the other man nods. So far everything’s going according to plan.

It’s a simple mission on paper. Korean crimelord Kim Haewon, codename Big Rhino—Yangyang full belly laughed for a minute straight at that—has made a very powerful enemy and will be taken down within the coming week. But he has some friends that can’t go down just yet, including a few high profile names in the government. His offices have already been raided and all mentions of sensitive names wiped. He has one last backup left, sitting nice and secure in his sprawling mansion defended by state-of-the-art digital security systems and armed guards, and all Xiaojun’s team has to do is break in, obtain the drive, and leave nothing that can be traced back to their employer.

Simple.

“Why are there so many goddamn stairs.” Hendery is panting heavy through the earpiece. 

“This is the last flight,” says Xiaojun. “It’s a straight line at the top. And then right at the end of the hallway you’ll find a little passage with a door at the end.”

“So many bloody doors,” says Hendery, grumbling. His breathing is more even, meaning he’s reached the end of the climb. “Should’ve switched jobs with Lucas.”

“So I’d have to listen to you fight all this time?” Xiaojun snorts. “I’m glad you didn’t. You’re doing good so far, babe.”

He hears Hendery hum, pleased, but the satisfaction is dimmed by the huge, almost maniacal grin Ten is giving him from the next computer set. Xiaojun stares back defiantly and raises an eyebrow at him, and Ten impossibly grins wider. Xiaojun points his chin at him, silently demanding he tell him what was up. 

_You called him babe_ , mouths Ten.

Xiaojun feels himself go beet red. _No I didn’t_ , he mouths back.

“You did,” Kun says from across the room.

“Shut up,” hisses Xiaojun.

“I didn’t say anything.” Hendery sounds offended.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” says Xiaojun quickly. He glares at a cackling Ten. “It’s nothing. Let’s focus.”

“Okay,” says Hendery, unconvinced. “I see the door. I’m kicking it down, but first…”

“First I’m scanning to check if it’s been uncoupled from the main intruder attack system,” finishes Xiaojun. There are trips on doors that do more than just sound the alarm, and Xiaojun does not want Hendery swallowing down a lungful of toxic gas. “There is a link,” he says, clicking through the plans of the house. Bless Winwin and his flawless information acquisition skills. “It’s connected to two separate protection systems.”

“So this is definitely the one we want then,” says Hendery. 

“Definitely.” Not for the first time Xiaojun appreciates how in sync the two of them are. It’s a great help on missions. “System number one… deactivated. Number two…” He hums, frowning. “Wait a sec.”

“I’m waiting.” 

Xiaojun can already imagine Hendery bouncing from foot to foot, and despite the tension he has to grin. “Kun,” he calls across the dark room they set up the computer systems in. “Yangyang installed the remote access device in the mainframe?”

“Yup,” says Kun, not sparing a glance as his fingers go flying across the keyboard. “I’m deleting video surveillance as we speak.”

“There’s another defense system on the door my man’s at,” says Xiaojun. He hears Ten snigger and ignores it. “Some kind of backup.”

“Then it’s built in another physical server,” says Kun. “Nothing here.”

Xiaojun curses and says, “It’s on some kind of separate backup server. Do you see any kind of port? Plug me in and maybe I can hack it from here.”

“Babe, it’s a fucking door,” says Hendery, grinning. “Why would they have a port? You think the big bad gang boss is gonna connect his iPod to a door?”

“Well what am I supposed to do?” asks Xiaojun. “We have to disable the second system somehow.” He looks over his shoulder. “Kun, can you get Yangyang on it?”

“Yangyang is busy punching a man in the face, Xiaojun,” says Kun serenely. “Also I didn’t see any secondary security server in the plans Winwin obtained. I’m not sending my boy on a hunt now.” He grimaces, probably from Yangyang screaming in the earpiece on how he is not Kun’s boy.

“It looks like a regular reinforced door,” says Hendery in Xiaojun’s ear. “I have explosives.”

Xiaojun sits up straight. “You are not blowing up the door!”

“I’m taking ’em out,” reports Hendery, perfectly chipper. “I’m using the set 5 explosives. I’m setting the timer. I’m running away to hide.”

“You idiot!” Xiaojun knows he’s way too loud from the way Kun sighs and Ten grins, but he doesn’t care. “Those are not supposed to be used in a confined space! You don’t know what the fuck will happen when the alarm gets tripped! You—”

He hears the boom through the headset.

“Lucas says the ceiling’s shaking,” says Ten conversationally. “Also he took down more guys than Yangyang so you owe me dinner, Kun.”

“Can we focus? What the hell was that?” barks Kun. “Also we didn’t bet anything!”

“Hendery! Are you okay?” Xiaojun is half climbing out of his seat in distress. His entire body is tense, ready to snap at a feather’s touch. Hendery has to be okay. He has to be okay—

“I’m fine.” A cough. “That was a lot more dust than I expected. I’m pretty sure the walls caved in.”

“Why did you do that?” Xiaojun screams into the mic of his headset. “I told you not to! You could’ve gotten hurt!”

“But I’m fine, baby, nothing to worry about,” says Hendery, completely unbothered. “And the door’s open! I see the safe.”

Xiaojun takes a deep breath, willing himself to be calm. It only half works. “You wore your gas mask just in case, right?”

Silence. Xiaojun knows what that means.

“Well it’s too late now,” he says, sighing. “Did you set the charges to get the safe open? It’s set 1.” 

Hendery hums but doesn’t answer. “You like blue, right?”

“What?” Xiaojun doesn’t understand what that has to do with anything. 

“Heads up, we’ve got six minutes before the security reinforcements arrive,” says Kun, and Xiaojun hears it in his headset too. He’s speaking on the common channel.

“We cleared up everyone here,” says Yangyang. “Dery?”

“Hold.” Another boom, much softer. “Got the safe open. I see the drive. Damn, Winwin always knows exactly where everything is, huh? How the hell does he find this stuff out?”

“Please shut up and get out,” says Xiaojun. “Please.”

“Okay, okay, shutting up, getting out,” says Hendery. “Don’t worry, babe, everything’s fine.”

Xiaojun feels heat explode in his face, because he knows Hendery said it on the common channel and he knows everyone heard him. He’s pretty sure he hears Yangyang snigger. 

They stay on the line for a couple of more minutes as Winwin drives them away from the estate, and only when everyone is sure they’re not being followed does Xiaojun take off his headset. He sighs, long and heavy, and leans back in his chair.

“Your boyfriend’s gonna be the death of you one day.”

Xiaojun sits up. “He is not my boyfriend.”

Ten grins. “Sure,” he says. “ _Babe_.”

“You call Lucas baby all the time,” says Xiaojun, trying to ignore the blood rushing to his face.

“Because he is my baby,” says Ten like it’s the most obvious thing. “And Yangyang is Kun’s boy. Remind me what you call Hendery again, hmm?”

“Shut up,” mumbles Xiaojun, leaning back in his chair and pretending to sleep. He still hears Ten laugh before leaving.

Within two hours the car is back in their garage, and their four remaining operatives walk into the front room of their base. They’re all relatively unharmed, though Lucas has a gash on his arm Xiaojun knows Winwin will complain about the entire time he cleans and bandages it up. 

But Xiaojun’s attention is focused on Hendery. They’ve been working together for around two years, and Xiaojun knows him well enough now to not be so fooled by the handsome looks. Underneath the wavy black hair, the sharp jawline and princely nose, the warm brown eyes and the perfect lips and bright smile, is the brain of a total idiot. 

And the total idiot is carrying shopping bags. 

“What is that?” asks Kun with a suffering sigh. As their unofficial leader he suffers a lot. “Don’t tell me you went shopping after the mission.”

“Just picked up some snacks,” says Lucas innocently. “Yangyang said he was hungry. You know he almost got stabbed tonight.”

Kun’s demeanor changes in a snap. “Really?” he asks, concerned. “Are you okay? Why didn’t you say anything?”

Yangyang glares at Lucas, but lets Kun fuss over him. He’s only this patient after a mission.

Xiaojun, on the other hand, is the crabbiest he’s ever been. Ten notices and probably whispers about it to Winwin under a strawberry jam tart, but Xiaojun doesn’t care, because Hendery seems to have no problem with eating and laughing along with Lucas, and if Hendery has no problem then neither does Xiaojun. 

“Next time one of you losers is doing the acquiring,” says Hendery, pointing a pastry at Lucas and Yangyang. “It’s the worst part of—hey, that’s Xiaojun’s!”

Winwin stops with the cookie halfway to his mouth. “Huh?”

“I only got one pack, and they’re for Xiaojun,” says Hendery. He reaches across and snatches the cookie from Winwin’s grasp. He puts it in Xiaojun’s hand with a warm smile, and Xiaojun is too taken aback to say anything. 

“You play favorites too much,” complains Winwin. He reaches for another cookie, only for Hendery to snatch that away too, along with the packet.

“Just get married already,” says Yangyang with a snort. 

Xiaojun blushes and he’s all ready to argue, but Hendery just laughs. Instead of telling Yangyang he’s being ridiculous—which he _is,_ it’s not like that with Hendery—Xiaojun just eats the cookie Hendery put in his hand. It’s his favorite.

By the time they finish their snacks and communicate details with the client, the far horizon is slowly warming pink with the promise of approaching dawn. Xiaojun heads to his shared room with Kun, more than ready to collapse into his bed and sleep for the next two days, when Hendery appears by the door and asks, so casually, “Can we talk for a moment?”

They head to the tiny kitchen. Xiaojun leans against the counter, arms crossed. He’s exhausted and he needs to sleep. He doesn’t care how sorry Hendery is for his reckless move during the mission. No matter how many times he apologizes Xiaojun is not going to let this go, Hendery could’ve hurt himself, or Lucas or Yangyang, Xiaojun has every right to be mad and he is going to be mad—

“I got you something,” says Hendery.

Xiaojun’s inner monologue stops. “Huh?”

Hendery fishes in his inner pocket, and comes out with an exquisite silver bracelet set with a vibrant blue gem. He holds it out, the brightest, most beautiful smile on his face. 

Xiaojun stares at the item, stunned, and then back again at Hendery. “What—where did you get this?”

“Big Hippo’s room,” says Hendery, still smiling bright. “It’s beautiful, right?”

“Big Rhino,” corrects Xiaojun distractedly. He’s staring at the bracelet, until he realizes what he just heard. “Wait, you _stole_ this tonight?”

“It’s not stealing if you take it from a thief,” says Hendery, like what he’s saying makes perfect sense. “It’s just moving it around.”

“It is totally stealing!” cries Xiaojun. “You could get in serious trouble for this.”

“Only if I get caught, and I’ve never been caught doing anything in my entire life,” says Hendery, grinning. “Come on, take it. It suits you.”

“It…” Xiaojun feels his face go scarlet. “No way.”

“Take it,” insists Hendery. “For all the heart attacks I give you every time we go on a mission.”

“I can’t accept,” says Xiaojun, and he really can’t. There’s no way he’d accept such an expensive gift, and not from Hendery. “You keep it, I can’t—”

Without warning Hendery takes Xiaojun’s hand and slips the bracelet on, fixing it around his left wrist. Xiaojun can’t even imagine pulling away.

Hendery’s hands are rough, but his movements are gentle. His fingers hold Xiaojun’s hand delicately, almost careful. For a split second Hendery runs his fingertips across the back of Xiaojun’s hand, over his fingers, and then the feeling is gone. The bracelet is on Xiaojun’s wrist.

“See?” says Hendery, soft smile on his face. “Perfect.”

With the light of the amber dawn coming through the kitchen windows, Xiaojun can only stare back. 

“Are you getting dizzy yet?” asks Hendery, and Xiaojun can hear him grin. He whips his head to the left, then the right. “How about now? Now?”

Xiaojun groans. “This was a mistake.”

“I like it,” says Ten. “Lucas is so tall. I finally know what things look like from up here.”

“Yangyang put your glasses back on,” says Kun sharply. “Don’t make me tell you again, young man.”

“Sorry,” says Winwin over the comm channel, from where he’s sitting in the driver’s seat. “It’s because the layout plans I got are incomplete.”

“It’s not your fault, Winwin,” says Kun. “It’s good to be able to follow along with what the guys are doing visually. _Yangyang_!”

Xiaojun hears Yangyang cackle on the comm line open to all seven of them. He must’ve learned that from Ten. “I look dumb in these glasses,” the youngest member of their team says. “Couldn’t you fix the camera to our shirts or something?”

“I think I look pretty hot,” says Hendery. He turns so that he’s reflected in the tinted windows of their van, and Xiaojun can see him through the camera built into the frame of his glasses. “Right, babe?”

“Shut up,” mutters Xiaojun switching to their personal channel, but the damage is already done. He can hear both Yangyang and Lucas laughing.

“We’re coming up,” says Yangyang. “How does this fucker have so many buildings? Being rich should be illegal.”

“Getting rich the way he did _is_ illegal,” says Kun.

“We should blow up his building,” says Lucas, and Xiaojun can see Yangyang nod enthusiastically from Hendery’s camera feed. “Just to teach him a lesson.”

Kun sighs. “This is a stealth mission,” he says. “Lowkey.”

A chorus of complaints goes up on the headset. “I hate stealth missions,” grumbles Hendery. Xiaojun nods, although he knows Hendery can’t see him. He hates stealth missions too. They feel inherently more dangerous.

“I thought we were sabotaging shit,” complains Lucas. “I wanna blow stuff up.”

“Sabotage stealthily,” says Kun. “Our Big Rhino didn’t like the stunt we pulled last week. He’s moving big against the client, and he’s got a huge stockpile of weapons ready at this safehouse. I don’t want him to even think of turning them against you.”

“Can’t we just, like, chuck a bomb at them as we drive by?” asks Yangyang. “If the list Winwin gave us is even close to legit the place will go up in seconds.”

“We’re trying not to attract too much attention,” says Ten. “Unless you think a two storey tall bonfire is lowkey?”

Yangyang grumbles but says nothing more.

Xiaojun’s attention is fixed on Hendery’s video feed, and he’s so focused he almost misses his soft, “Hey.”

“Yeah?”

“I am gonna look so cool,” says Hendery. “Watch me.”

“That’s my job,” says Xiaojun, and he can’t help but smile.

Hendery turns to face the window so that Xiaojun can see him smile too, and then he pulls his mask up over the bottom half of his face. 

The car rolls to a stop, and Lucas says over the main comm channel, “Showtime.”

It’s a quick dash over from the block Winwin parks in, out of sight of the traffic cams. Kim Haewon’s safehouse looks like a typical two storey residential building, though too expensive for any regular family, but the stretch of road it sits against is devoid of any street cams. A little digging by Winwin was able to unearth an unofficial agreement between the crimelord and the local government council, and the team is going to use it to their advantage. 

There are no government cameras facing the property, but plenty of Kim Haewon’s own. Xiaojun watches as Lucas effortlessly climbs up a pole from out of the camera’s line of sight and attaches a small device to it. He glances over to see Kun busy typing away. 

“In,” Kun announces half a minute later. “Three cameras on this street are on the same network.”

“I see five total,” says Hendery. “Separate network?”

“Likely,” says Xiaojun. He looks over the network map and feeds Kun sent over. “The ones on the compound wall itself are separate. And two at the end of the street.”

“I’m on those two,” says Yangyang, already setting off. He’s quick and silent, like a shadow. 

“Then I’ll get the ones on the fence,” says Hendery.

“Careful,” says Xiaojun. “Winwin cased the place and said the cameras overlap with others on the north side of the compound.”

“You know I’m always careful,” says Hendery, and Xiaojun laughs because he knows it’s a joke. He moves with lightning speed, crossing the street and pressing himself up against the wall of the concrete fencing the safehouse. He looks up, and Xiaojun sees the camera jutting out the wall. Sloppy. With the way it’s set it’s no problem at all for Hendery to get close unseen and clip on the remote access device.

The cam network is relatively unguarded, and Xiaojun doesn’t need Kun’s help getting in. He avoids connecting to the central network of the compound, wary of setting off any alarms. Instead he finds the temporary video storage in the camera memory and sets up a loop.

“Done,” he announces on the general channel.

Hendery hums, meaning good job, and Xiaojun smiles.

“Heading in,” says Lucas.

“We can see you, you don’t need to _narrate_ ,” says Ten, saying the last bit in English for extra effect. “Quiet now.”

Xiaojun can imagine Lucas huff, but he listens and they go around looking for a quiet entry.

The front gate is guarded with armed guards. There are two of them, neither particularly diligent, but they have radios on all the time and can call for backup on a second’s notice. All three members of their field team are supplied with a low voltage EMP pulse generator just strong enough to short out the radios and nothing more, but they’re more of a Plan B than anything else, and the idea is for them to get into the compound without alerting anyone of their presence. The fence is electrified over the top and according to Winwin’s observations there is a two inch space on either side of the shock wire. 

“I can get over easy,” murmurs Hendery, reading Xiaojun’s mind.

“Be careful,” says Xiaojun. “Don’t get hurt.”

“I don’t get hurt,” says Hendery, and Xiaojun clutches the handle of his chair and hopes he’s right.

Hendery turns to Lucas and Yangyang, and they carry out some silent conversation. At the end Hendery nods, and steps away from the wall and runs full sprint at Lucas.

Xiaojun’s heart is in his throat as Hendery’s vision shifts from Lucas and his cupped hands to the wall and then up, up, as he moves over the wall, over and across, sailing through the air before fixing on the lawn below him. He lands on all fours soundlessly. His breathing is so quiet Xiaojun can barely hear him through the earpiece. 

Hendery’s landed in one corner of the compound, behind the booth housing the electric gate’s controls and out of direct eye line of the two guards. He keeps his gaze fixed past the edge of the booth, ready in case one of the guards hears anything. No movement. 

Lucas and Yangyang start discussing how to get into the compound, but Xiaojun’s not paying attention to them. “You did great,” he says on the personal comm channel.

“Pretty cool, right?” says Hendery, voice low.

“Very cool,” says Xiaojun.

“Stop flirting,” Ten calls out from next to him.

This time Xiaojun mutes his channel with Hendery before hissing, “Shut up!” Ten just grins in reply.

Xiaojun turns his attention back to Hendery’s video feed. He’s looking over his shoulder to where Yangyang is standing on the thin ledge of the top of the fence, balanced effortlessly a half inch away from the electrified wire.

“You get down from there right now,” hisses Kun. Xiaojun can hear him from across the cramped room. “I am not kidding! Someone is going to see you.”

Yangyang jumps down with near superhuman grace, rolling to a silent landing. He flashes a peace sign at Hendery. 

“And me?” Lucas asks.

“Just hang out there,” says Hendery. 

“Like hell,” retorts Lucas.

“Kick off the side pillar, get your hand on your side of the wire and vault over,” instructs Ten, and Xiaojun can hear him in the room, not through the headset. “You can do it.”

“That’s risky—” starts Xiaojun, but before he can even finish he hears Hendery chuckle and then Lucas’s handsome, smiling face is in his line of vision. Ten whoops from his seat.

“Stop, you’ll give Yangyang ideas,” grumbles Kun. They all know Lucas is the only one physically gifted enough to pull off moves like this, but that never stops Yangyang from trying.

“There’s no cover between here and the side entrance to the building,” says Winwin into the common channel. “Distraction ready?”

“Got it covered,” says Yangyang.

The next second a loud, irritating siren cuts through the silent night air. Xiaojun flinches, but Hendery doesn’t waste a second before he’s dashing across the manicured lawn. Both Lucas and Yangyang are to his left, all three moving in a tight group.

“What was that?” asks Winwin. “Car alarm?”

“He planted an electrical charge under a car at the end of the street,” says Kun. “He just set it off and triggered the alarm.”

Xiaojun nods. Smart. He’s watching the guards through the cameras Lucas got them into, and the men look as clueless as ever. Xiaojun breathes a sigh of relief.

Hendery’s video feed shows a reinforced door fitted with an electrical fingerprint lock. Even sloppier. Yangyang is able to get the lock open easily with a little powder and clear plastic, and the door swings open an inch.

“We have the original layout of the building from before Rhino’s remodeling,” says Winwin in the comm channel all seven of them share. “This is the kitchen door.”

“Big Rhino is on the premises,” says Kun. “All his security will be centered around him, but still, enter carefully.”

Hendery nods, and then slips inside. Xiaojun hisses, upset he went in first, and Hendery hums softly in response. He knows Xiaojun is upset, and why, but he’s still doing it.

The kitchen is dark, and empty. No guards. Hendery flicks on the night vision in the glasses. Everything lights up in garish greens and grays, light from the open door reflecting off the edges of counters and electrical appliances. 

“No cameras,” murmurs Hendery.

“It’s not a government agency,” says Ten, and Xiaojun can see Kun grimace. That had been a tough job. “It’s one of eight of the Rhino’s properties, he probably didn’t expect to do anything serious with it. The only reason he’s even here is because we fucked up his mansion.”

“We should’ve blown that up,” mutters Lucas.

“We really should’ve,” agrees Ten wistfully.

“Okay, can we focus?” asks Kun, a touch sharp. “There are cameras in the hallway beyond. I’m trying to get the feed to loop without letting the central network know we’re messing about. Sit tight a second, okay?”

Hendery nods, and then he says, “I’m pretty cool, huh?”

Xiaojun checks the channel. It’s their direct one. “Not bad,” he mutters, low enough so Ten won’t hear.

“Okay, then I’ll just have to impress you even more,” says Hendery.

“Don’t get yourself caught showing off,” says Xiaojun, trying to sound serious and failing.

“I never get caught,” says Hendery, and Xiaojun chuckles.

There’s a beat of silence before Hendery says, so casually, “You should wear it.”

“Wear what?” Xiaojun is distracted. Kun has enlisted his help in getting past some security protocols, and he needs to get it done before the refresh point. 

“What I got for you.”

Xiaojun’s fingers slip over the keys. He glances over at the others in the room, making sure none of them are paying attention before he says in a very low voice, “You can’t be serious.”

“I am,” says Hendery, and to Xiaojun’s surprise he actually does sound it. He’s never serious. “It’d suit you, babe.”

Xiaojun’s face blooms pink. He can feel it happen and all he can do is pray Ten doesn’t look over. Hendery often calls him that during missions, but it feels different this time. He knows he should say something, maybe argue or pretend like he has no idea what Hendery is talking about, but his mind is blank and he can’t force anything out. Hendery doesn’t say anything either, waiting for Xiaojun to respond. Xiaojun doesn’t know how. 

“Okay, all done.” Kun’s voice cuts through, jolting Xiaojun back to reality. “I can loop it forty minutes before it’ll exceed the memory limit and send a warning back to the control center.”

That’s right. They’re in the middle of a mission. Whatever Hendery meant by _that_ could wait. Xiaojun fights the instinct to slap his face as he takes a deep breath. He needs to focus. 

“That’s more than enough time,” says Lucas. “Let’s go.”

The hallway is dark, only slivers of light present where they leak from underneath doors ahead. Hendery turns to Lucas and Yangyang and they exchange nods. Lucas and Yangyang take the ground floor. Hendery heads upstairs.

“Careful, Big Hippo’s study is near where you are,” says Ten from next to Xiaojun.

“Rhino,” Kun and Xiaojun correct simultaneously, and then they both snort.

“A big ugly animal is a big ugly animal,” huffs Ten. He pauses, listening to whatever Lucas is saying on the line, and then says, “Hippos are worse. Way worse. They stink like hell, have you ever been near a hippo?”

Xiaojun tunes him out, focusing instead on Hendery’s doings. He’s climbing the stairs, keeping close to the wall as he lightly goes up. He sticks a camera onto the bannister, and another window pops up on Xiaojun’s screen, this one giving him a clear view of the staircase. Through Kun’s tap on the security cameras Xiaojun sees there aren’t many inside the house at all, beyond the ones scanning the hallways and the outside of the crime boss’s bedroom and study. They’re all running on loop.

Hendery gets to the top of the stairs when he freezes. Before Xiaojun can ask what’s wrong, Hendery jumps over the edge of the railing, grabbing hold of a baluster with one hand before he crashes to the floor below. He hangs there, silent, unmoving.

Feet move across Hendery’s line of vision on the first floor. Xiaojun holds his breath, tense, praying Hendery wasn’t spotted. 

Nothing happens. The feet don’t double back, no one shouts, no alarm is raised. With a grunt of exertion Hendery pulls himself back up, feet swinging, until he’s able to get one foot on the edge of the stairs and swing his other leg over the handrail. 

“You okay?” asks Xiaojun, and Hendery hums, barely audible, and nods.

“I need a place to duck into when I get up there,” he says. “What’s the room closest to the stairs?”

Xiaojun pulls up the floor plan Winwin provided. “It’s supposed to be a kids’ playroom,” he says. “I don’t know what Big Rhino’s using it for now.”

“Hopefully for his toys,” says Hendery. 

He creeps out onto the first floor landing. Xiaojun sees the door, exactly where it is on the old floor plan. The landing is shrouded in shadow despite the dim lamp opposite the mouth of the staircase, and it’s more than dark enough to see no light leaking out from underneath the door. 

“No light,” says Hendery. “So…”

“Probably no one inside,” finishes Xiaojun. Probably. There could be a hundred men inside, asleep and with their weapons by their pillows. 

“No one awake, anyway,” says Hendery. He’s even in sync with Xiaojun’s stress thoughts. “Lemme just…”

He puts a hand on the doorknob, and Xiaojun flinches, even though he knows a regular residential building like this won’t have the wiring capability to electrify doors. Nothing happens. Hendery tries twisting the knob. It doesn’t move.

“It’s locked, babe,” he says, excited. “Do you think this is it?” 

“Might be,” says Xiaojun. He reviews the floor layout, overlaying it with the images of the compound Winwin had taken days before. “There’s supposed to be a window in this room, but it’s not visible from the outside. They might’ve bricked the wall over it.” He sends a quick message to Winwin for confirmation. 

Within seconds Winwin sends a new file to their shared network—the floor plan with a section circled in green, along with a photograph of the property. “It juts out there,” he says. “That’s not in the original floor plan. They didn’t brick over the window. They’ve extended the room.”

“Then there’s definitely something cool in there,” says Hendery. “The lock looks pretty standard, I should be able to get it open with just my kit—” He closes his mouth with a near audible click, and then he’s sprinting down the hallway, in the opposite direction of the staircase. Someone’s coming.

Xiaojun’s keeping track of where Hendery is relative to the poor blueprint he has of the house. “Bathroom on the left,” he says. “Alcove right beyond.”

Hendery ducks into it, pressing his back to the wall. With the poor audio feed Xiaojun can’t hear anything except his steady breathing. He does see him pull the knife from under his arm.

“Stealth,” Xiaojun reminds him. He doesn’t know what else to do now. He’s so removed from the action, so far away. Even if Hendery needs help he won’t be able to help him.

So he waits. He counts Hendery’s breaths, in, out, subconsciously matching his own to them. But nothing happens. No figures pass before Hendery’s line of sight, he hears no approaching footsteps. Whoever Hendery heard come down the hallway did not come this far. 

“Babe,” says Hendery, barely over a whisper. “I need you to be my eyes a sec, can you do that?”

“Camera is on the left corner of the frame,” says Xiaojun. 

Immediately his vision tilts and turns, and flips upside down. Hendery sets the glasses down on the floor, sliding as little of them as he can outside the cover of his alcove. 

Xiaojun scans the upside down feed of the hallway. The range of the camera is admittedly limited, but there’s no one in sight. “No one I can see,” he declares. “Other side?”

Hendery flips the glasses to view the other side of the hallway. It’s much shorter on this side, and Xiaojun has a clear view to the end of it, and even through the window on the far wall.

“No one,” he says. “But keep your ears out.”

Hendery holds the glasses up to his face so Xiaojun can see him smile, and Xiaojun pretends like his heart doesn’t do a little flip at that. It isn’t even until Hendery slinks back past the stairs to set up a few more cameras does he realize what he just saw.

“Where’s your mask?” asks Xiaojun sharply. 

“Oh, I took it off some time ago,” says Hendery. He crouches down in front of the door, takes out his lockpicking tools. “It cramps my style.”

“Your style?” Xiaojun wants to laugh in disbelief. “What if someone sees you?”

“They won’t,” says Hendery. “I don’t get caught.”

Xiaojun curses up a storm under his breath, gaze flicking from the camera on Hendery’s glasses to the ones he stuck to the corridor and staircase. He can see, far at the end of the landing by the second set of stairs, two men smoking by the window. In the dark Hendery is nothing but a shadow, but Xiaojun is wracked with unease. 

Something’s wrong. He can feel it, a clawing feeling at the back of his throat, a slithering sensation that creeps from the back of his skull down, down his spine. Something’s wrong, but Xiaojun doesn’t know what. Hendery is working on the lock, head down. The men at the end of the hallway aren’t moving. Ten is talking animatedly over the line with Lucas, relaxed and easy; Kun is muttering words of praise to Yangyang. Everything is okay. 

But something is _wrong_.

Xiaojun pulls his gaze off the views of the lock and length of the hallway, and it falls on the camera by the front gate.

The guards there are gone.

“Hendery,” Xiaojun says, tension surging in his gut. “Hendery, something’s wrong. Get out.”

The hum comes through the earpiece. “I’m almost done,” says Hendery. “One more second and I can slip inside. Is somebody coming?”

“I don’t know,” says Xiaojun. He can see Ten and Kun looking at him. “The guards aren’t at the front gate. Something’s wrong, you need to get out.”

“Okay.” Hendery speaks before Kun and Ten can even check their own screens. “Okay, I trust you, we’re going—”

It happens so fast Xiaojun can’t make sense of it. Hendery’s head snaps to the left so fast it’s dizzying, and then Xiaojun’s vision spins as Hendery rolls to the side before he’s back up on his feet.

The unmistakable thunder of gunfire rings through the earpiece.

Around him Kun and Ten are in a panic, yelling into their headsets, shouting orders and warnings. Xiaojun barely registers them. Hendery is facing off against both of the men who’d been at the end of the hallway just seconds ago. A feint, Xiaojun now knows. They probably spotted him ages ago. Maybe even when he first broke in. 

One of the men has a gun. All Hendery has on him is his knife. Nausea claws up Xiaojun’s throat, threatening to choke him. He’s useless. There’s nothing he can do sitting here, so far away, while Hendery is outnumbered and outgunned, while he might die—

Hendery moves.

The man with the gun shoots, sound ringing in Xiaojun’s ear. He doesn’t know if he hit, but Hendery doesn’t slow down, doesn’t falter a step. Xiaojun gets a look at the man’s ugly face twisted in surprise before Hendery’s right elbow connects with his nose. The man staggers back, and Hendery gets him with a raised knee to the gut and a vicious right hook across the face. The next second the man is a crumpled heap on the floor, and his gun is in Hendery’s left hand and pointed at the other. 

“I will kill you if I have to.” Hendery’s voice carries a coldness Xiaojun has never heard before. “How many of you bastards are in the building?”

The man says nothing, eyes wide in shock. Hendery levels the gun between his eyes. His hand does not shake.

“I don’t know,” blurts out the man. “I don’t know, we were eight but then boss called in some other guys from outside, I don’t know—”

Hendery cracks him across the head with the butt of the gun. The man goes down. Hendery stands over the two men, one out cold, the other groaning in pain, and after a moment’s thought shoots both of them through the leg. The shots are precise, taken without hesitation. Xiaojun jumps in his chair.

“Sorry,” says Hendery, and Xiaojun knows he’s saying it to him. He goes back to the lock he was picking and kicks it in.

“What are you doing?” Xiaojun half shrieks as Hendery enters the room. It’s empty, nothing more than an old table and couch in the corner. “Get out of there!”

“Babe, it’s okay,” says Hendery as he enters further into the room, towards a small door built into the far wall. “I can’t leave with nothing to show for it. They heard the shots. They probably think I’ve been taken care of.”

“You don’t know that,” says Xiaojun, frantic. “They’ll send more men to check. Just go.”

“One sec,” says Hendery, and he kicks at the knob of the small door. The wood splinters and the door swings open.

Xiaojun pulls at his hair, only able to watch helplessly as Hendery crouches down and enters the small room. He switches to the main comm channel. “What the fuck is happening downstairs?”

“Not fucking good!” Yangyang screams. “Lucas was fucking shot, the fucking imbecile. I fucking shot some fuckers. We’re getting the fuck out.”

“Is he hurt bad?” asks Xiaojun, but he’s not really listening, eyes glued to Hendery exploring the small room in the darkness. He knows Lucas is okay, because Ten is okay, still sitting in his chair. Kun is too distracted to even scold Yangyang for his language. 

“Fine,” answers Lucas. He’s breathing heavy, and so is Yangyang. “Fine. Getting out of the compound.”

“I see you,” says Kun. “There’s—fuck, more coming through the back alley. Front gate, Yang. Front gate. Winwin! _Front_ _fucking gate_!”

Xiaojun doesn’t pay any more attention. “Lucas and Yangyang are leaving the compound,” he says, only to Hendery. “Please, just get out. The mission isn’t important.”

“There’s nothing here,” says Hendery. The small room has a few boxes piled in it, all filled with old paper and files. Not their mission. “Shit. Okay, I’m getting out.”

“Hendery, where the hell are you?” Lucas yells over the line. “Winwin’s coming with the car.”

“He’s coming,” says Xiaojun. “He’s—”

Hendery turns around and is face to face with three large, armed men. 

The one in front, heavily muscled and with a bent and broken nose, stares at Hendery. A smile spreads on his face. “It’s you.”

Xiaojun’s heart stops dead in his chest. _He knows Hendery._

Hendery doesn’t hesitate. He darts forward, out of the doorway and off to the side, firing as he moves. All three of the men duck out of the way. Xiaojun sees one man go down, clutching a bleeding side. The other two look unharmed.

They’re more experienced than the ones Hendery faced in the hallway. The thought is worrying. 

Hendery’s main focus is on the door behind his attackers. He fires off another shot, almost careless, keeps low to the ground. He pulls the knife out with his free hand and slashes at the hand that reaches for him, and Xiaojun can see the blood spray over the lenses of the glasses. The man falls back with a scream, cut short as Hendery spins the knife around in his grip and jams the handle right into the soft bone of his nose. The way to the door is clear. 

But Hendery instead turns to the last remaining opponent. And Xiaojun knows it’s smart, he can’t just dash and hope he won’t get shot in the back, but it takes every ounce of his self control to not yell at Hendery to just _run_. 

The man still standing is the one who knows Hendery, and that alone is enough to get Xiaojun squirming. Hendery can’t have many bullets left, if any at all. The other man’s gun is likely fully loaded.

But he doesn’t shoot. He tosses the gun aside and launches himself at Hendery.

This man is a trained fighter. The first thing he does is target the knife in Hendery’s grip, massive fist closing around slender fingers. Hendery holds fast and attempts to knee him in the gut, but the other is too quick, blocking him with his solid forearm. Xiaojun can hear the crack of bone on bone. 

Neither Hendery nor the other slow down. If anything the big man attacks with even more ferocity. Xiaojun can only watch, horrified, as the man roughly shoves aside Hendery’s leg and lands a hard punch to his ribs. Hendery rolls away from the blow as much as he can, but he’s trapped. His attacker is no longer trying to wrench the knife from him. He’s just trying to keep him there. 

“Hendery needs help,” says Xiaojun, voice shaking. “Someone. Anyone!”

“We’re outside the front gate.” Winwin’s voice is overlaid with the sound of gunfire. “Lucas is bleeding, Yangyang is banged up—”

Xiaojun switches off the channel. Useless. They’re useless. _He’s_ useless, sitting here, watching Hendery struggle against this man twice his size, not even trying to land a hit anymore and just trying to dodge.

Hendery’s panting is heavy in Xiaojun’s ears. He punches at the other man’s face, but the blow is weak, uncoordinated. The man dodges easily, and smashes his fist into Hendery’s face. Xiaojun hears bone crack.

“What is he doing?” It’s Kun, standing right behind Xiaojun, his own workspace forgotten. “Why—why is he beating him up? He has him trapped already.” 

Xiaojun doesn’t know. He can’t answer, he can’t help, he can’t do anything. 

Hendery’s counterattacks are only getting weaker. He tries again, this time bringing his leg up in between their bodies to try and push the man away, get some space. The other instead shoves him forward, hard against the wall behind. Xiaojun can see the edge of his forearm pressed against Hendery’s throat. He can crush his windpipe within seconds in this position.

But he doesn’t. Instead he looks at Hendery, exhausted, beaten and bruised Hendery, and says, “You put up a good fight. Didn’t think you’d be much of a fighter when I saw the video of you breaking into the boss’s room.”

Xiaojun digs his nails into the palms of his hands until he’s sure he’s bleeding. The mission last week. Hendery was seen. 

The man’s ugly face stretches with a cruel smile. “You’re coming with me, pretty boy.”

“No,” says Xiaojun. “No, no, no, we’re getting you out, baby, we’re going to help, just—just a little longer—”

“Cut the line.”

Xiaojun freezes, words dying in his chest. 

“Cut the line,” repeats Hendery, voice rough but coldly, terrifyingly serious. “Cut the line, baby. Do it.”

“No!” Xiaojun’s throat is tight and he has to scream the word out. “No, I am not—I am _not leaving you_ —”

“Got a little friend in your ear there?” The man presses his arm harder against Hendery’s neck as he reaches across and rips the earpiece from his ear. “Hello,” he rasps, lips against the device. The sound of his voice sends a shudder of disgust down Xiaojun’s spine. “We’ll find you soon. Enjoy your life while it lasts, _baby_.”

“Go fuck yourself,” spits Xiaojun.

The man drops the earpiece to the floor. The burst of high pitched feedback forces Xiaojun to rip off his headset and throw it aside. It’s a silent movie on his screen now, the man’s hand reaching for the glasses, examining them with an amused sneer. He holds them up, turning them this way and that, until Xiaojun can just see the edge of Hendery’s bruised face.

“Stop.” It’s Ten, trying to pull Xiaojun away from the screen. “Xiaojun, stop.”

Xiaojun shakes him off. He can’t leave, not now. 

He can’t help, he can’t leave. He can’t do anything.

The man turns the glasses so Xiaojun gets one last, clear look at Hendery, propped up against the wall and beaten and bloody, and then he crushes the device in his grip.

The screen goes black. 

Ten’s arms wrap around Xiaojun, holding him close. Xiaojun barely registers it, or Kun’s frantic typing, his steely orders to the others through his headset. Everything falls away into static.

Xiaojun stares at his reflection in the dark screen. 


	2. Connection 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday to our purest ray of starlight! 
> 
> Thank you everyone for your reactions and support for the first chapter! I hope i can repay you with this, the longest chapter i have ever written _ever_
> 
> Warning: there is a lot more violence, gore, and all that fun stuff in this chapter than in the first. The rating has been increased to Mature. Sorry and i hope you'll still like the chapter!

Consciousness hits Hendery with all the force of a freight train.

He gasps in a sharp breath, body jerking with no space to move. He’s sitting upright. His chest is bound to the back of a chair, his ankles to its front legs. Carefully, he moves his fingers. There’s feeling in them despite the restraints digging into his wrists, which is a good sign. He tries his toes next, moving them around, feeling the smooth, dusty floor underneath. His shoes are gone. That sucks, because he had a knife in his boot that might’ve come in handy right about now. 

Eyes closed, head down, Hendery puts the picture together in his mind. Silently, he raises his head and sees that he is alone in the bare room they’ve tied him up in. There is one door built into the corner. No windows. 

Hendery tries his restraints, but they’re good and secure. Unarmed like this, he has no way of escape. 

So he waits.

He counts the seconds in batches of twenty. He’s gone through fifty-three batches when there is a sharp sound like the scratch of metal on metal, and the door in the corner opens with a screech. 

Five men file in. They’re all tall and muscled, the same hard and blocky features, typical gangster type hired for their muscles rather than their brains. The one in front Hendery recognizes. It’s the bastard that hit him in the face and captured him in the first place.

Hendery decides when he’s free, he’s going to stab that one through the throat. 

One man comes to stand beside Hendery’s chair, leering at him the entire time. One stands by the door. The other two flank the man Hendery knows, confirming he’s at the top of this pyramid.

“Finally awake,” says the man in charge. He grins an evil, vicious grin. 

Hendery doesn’t answer. His throat is dry but not too bad, which tells him he hasn’t been out for more than a few hours. 

“You put up a better fight than I thought you would,” continues the man. “Nothing compared to me, but not bad.”

Big Warthog, Hendery decides to call him. Match with his boss, be a cute little couple. 

“I’m sure you’re thinking, _how am I still alive_?” Big Warthog pitches his voice high mockingly. “I mean, I didn’t even rough you up, though my boys were all in favor of that, what with the bullet you put through…”

Hendery tunes him out. He would love to laugh at this knucklehead, rile him up and insult his humongous nose and frankly ridiculous haircut, but for one of the first times in his life his sense of self-preservation wins out. Hendery doesn’t want to get tortured. Not because he’d crack, but because he knows Xiaojun would be very upset. 

Big Warthog keeps talking but it’s all white noise to Hendery now. He hopes Xiaojun is okay. He knows Kun is smart enough to dump the network they all used to communicate in case it gets traced through the earpiece, but a part of Hendery still worries. Xiaojun isn’t supposed to be in danger. The whole arrangement is Hendery is in danger, Xiaojun stays safe. 

The idiot next to Hendery threatens to pull his teeth out if he doesn’t talk. Hendery wonders if he should tell him most of his teeth are fake anyway. You don’t keep too many of your natural teeth when you get hit in the face as often as Hendery does. 

Damn, Hendery is really grateful for Ten and his connections. He even knows where to get dental work done. 

“... some fucking boyfriend or something talking to him…”

Hendery snaps back to the present.

They aren’t talking to him anymore. Big Warthog is arguing with one of his lackeys, both of them looking frustrated and ready to snap.

“It’s a whole fucking pro op,” says the other man. “There were two more of those assholes in the house. They shot a lot of our guys. One of them killed Taejin-hyung, threw a knife right through his neck.”

Yangyang. Lucas is stronger and better at close combat, but he doesn’t have that deadly accuracy. Hendery allows himself a moment of satisfaction.

“And a whole support team holed up somewhere,” spits Big Warthog. “Whatever bitch he was calling baby on his mic—”

Hendery clenches his jaw. He is definitely stabbing him in the throat.

“—we just need to find him,” says Big Warthog. “This one looks tough but you know how those useless nerds are, one little pinch and he’ll squeal.”

“We can still have fun with this one,” another thug says, almost bouncing with anticipation. “If they don’t show up we can still get where their hideout is from him.”

“I don’t think he’ll tell so easy,” says the big man. “It’ll be easier to lure one of the weaklings and get it out of them…”

“Maybe they’ll reach out to us to trade,” says the first crony.

Trade. They want something, and they’re willing to exchange Hendery for it. It must be the drive they took—the objective of their first mission. They don’t have it anymore, but of course Hendery isn’t telling these idiots that. He’s alive because they think he’s useful as a trading chip. The moment they know the others don’t have the drive, he’s fucked. 

The gangsters keep talking, getting more and more angry, and in the end, Big Warthog snaps. He walks up to Hendery and grabs him by the throat, meaty hand wrapping around his neck. He doesn’t squeeze, but the threat is there. “Your friends aren’t reaching out to us,” he spits. “We got no way of finding them. That fancy device you had on you is useless now.”

Hendery’s not surprised. He knew Kun would take care of it.

“You better hope they try and contact us soon,” says Big Warthog. “Otherwise it’s you whose guts we’re cutting out and leaving to hang.”

And maybe it’s the imminent threat of being strangled to death, but this time Hendery just can’t stop himself. “Have you tried Tinder or something? You sound really pent up.”

Big Warthog looks at him, and then he steps back and hits him across the face.

It’s a closed fist blow. Hendery’s chair tips over from the force of it, and his falls onto his right arm tied to the handle, hard. His head bangs against the concrete floor and he can almost feel his skull reverberate from the crack. One of the goons sets him upright with a grunt of effort, and Hendery’s head spins as the room rights itself. It was a hard hit. Any harder and he might have cracked his cheekbone. 

_Okay,_ Hendery thinks, forcing his brain to focus on anything but his face aflame with pain, his aching arm, the trickle of blood he can feel from his throbbing head wound. _He has a temper problem, and he’s willing to bang me up._

“My men ain’t allowed to touch you, but I got my own rules,” says Big Warthog. “Get smart with me again and you’ll regret it.”

Another retort is on Hendery’s tongue, but he holds it back. If he loses a tooth (again) or breaks a bone (again), Xiaojun will not be happy. 

“Tell me how to contact your people,” says Big Warthog. 

Hendery shrugs. “I dunno.”

A vein shows on Big Warthog’s neck, that’s how hard he’s gritting his teeth. “What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I don’t know,” says Hendery. “We talked through the earpiece. I don’t know how to contact them in any other way.”

Big Warthog glares at Hendery, trying to catch him in a lie. Hendery stares back unfazed. 

“So then what am I supposed to do?” growls Big Warthog. 

Hendery answers before his sense can kick in. “Wait.”

Big Warthog looks down at Hendery like he’s his mortal enemy, which isn’t too far off the truth. Hendery is going to kill him, after all. 

Without warning the big man growls, animalistic almost, and grabs Hendery, thick fingers digging into his chin. He pulls him up until Hendery’s body is screaming with the pain from the ropes cutting into him, never breaking eye contact.

“You better hope they’re willing to hand over what we want,” growls Big Warthog, and his face is so close Hendery can feel his breath against his skin. “The only reason I haven’t skinned you alive is because right now you’re more useful alive than dead. That will change if your buddies aren’t willing to trade.”

The ropes cut into Hendery’s chest and wrists with the force of a thousand needles. He keeps his face perfectly still as he says, “If that drive was so important to you, you should’ve kept it in a safer place.”

Big Warthog’s brow furrows. “Drive? Who gives a shit about some fucking drive?”

Hendery is sure the confusion shows on his face, because Big Warthog makes a sound of disgust and lets go of him. At this moment he’s too surprised to care.

“You got one week,” Big Warthog throws over his shoulder as he walks towards the door. “If your friends don’t reach out, we’re squeezing their location from your guts.”

Big Warthog leaves, his men following in two. Some of them glare at Hendery, others cackle in malicious glee at the prospect of torturing him. Hendery barely registers any of it. 

He doesn’t understand. What is this thing they’re after? The mission was to retrieve the drive, he didn’t take anything else—

Realization hits Hendery more painful than the punch to the face. He drops his head forward, chest heaving, mind racing with one thought on loop.

_Xiaojun._

─┤├─

“They’re going to kill him.”

“They’re not. If they were going to kill him they would’ve done it in the house.”

“They’re going to torture him, and then they’re going to kill him.”

“Stop saying that!”

Xiaojun falls silent. Kun gives him a long look, and then continues pacing. 

The mood in the apartment is draining. Lucas is recovering from a gunshot wound, Yangyang from a fractured rib. Ten and Winwin fuss over them, Ten endlessly complaining they should be resting in a hospital, while the two injured men insist they’re alright. 

The resentment sitting in Xiaojun’s chest is so vicious it’s terrifying. Ten and Winwin are worried about Lucas and Yangyang, while Hendery is being killed in a thousand different ways. It’s driving Xiaojun up the wall, and all he can do is force it down, down, but never far enough. 

And during it all Kun paces.

He’s dumped their entire communication network. He was scared of their location being traced back through Hendery’s earpiece, and did a full purge of all their devices. His computer is still on as a new network and channels set up, stark white letters running down the black screen faster than Xiaojun can track with his eyes. 

He stares at the screen. He thinks he might die if he lets himself think too much.

Hendery is gone. Xiaojun couldn’t help him, and Hendery is gone. He might be dead. He might be dead already and Xiaojun is just sitting here, useless like he was when he let him get captured—

“Stop worrying too much.” It’s Ten, and his voice is painfully gentle. He stands in front of where Xiaojun is sitting cross legged on the floor, and bends down so that they’re eye level. “It’s okay, Jun. We’ll get him back.”

“How?” Xiaojun’s voice cracks on the single syllable.

“We will,” says Ten, like that’s any answer, and then he wraps his arms around Xiaojun and hugs him tight. He holds him like that for a while, and then he moves to sit next to him on the plush carpet, arm still circling his shoulders.

“They want something from us,” says Winwin. “That’s why they took Hendery instead of killing him when they could.”

“Or something from only him,” says Yangyang. “They had no problem trying to shoot my goddamn head off.”

“Don’t swear,” says Kun distractedly, not stopping his steps.

“For fuck’s sake I only said goddamn—”

Kun shoots Yangyang a look, and there must be something in it because Yangyang falls quiet immediately.

“They recognized Hendery from the previous mission,” says Ten. “They know he took the drive.”

Xiaojun swallows painfully. It’s his fault all of this happened. He knew there was a secondary server the door to the boss’s study had been connected to, of course there was a secondary server for surveillance too, he should’ve known—

As if he can read Xiaojun’s spiraling thoughts, Ten squeezes him again. Xiaojun bites his lower lip as his stomach churns.

“Why do they want the drive so bad?” asks Lucas. “We took it like a week ago. We could’ve made a million copies by now.”

“Does it matter?” Xiaojun swallows again, and it hurts just as much as it did before. “They have Hendery.”

“For now,” says Lucas. “We’re getting him back.”

“How?” asks Xiaojun. “We don’t know where he is. We don’t know what they’re doing with him. We don’t know if he’s even alive—”

“He is,” says Kun. He stops pacing, stares down at Xiaojun. “He is.”

Xiaojun desperately wants to believe Kun is right. 

“So they wanted Hendery, and Hendery only,” says Yangyang. “And for what? The drive he stole?”

“Or information,” says Winwin. “Maybe they want to know about us, who sent us and why.”

“If all they wanted was info they wouldn’t need to target Hendery,” says Ten. “Taking Lucas or Yangyang would’ve worked just as well.” 

Kun hums. “It did seem like he was after Hendery specifically.”

Images flash across Xiaojun’s brain. Hendery being hit in the gut, across the face. The look in his eyes before the video feed on the glasses had been cut. Xiaojun wraps his arms around his stomach, trying to hold himself together. Ten shifts closer.

“Then they’ll wanna exchange him for it,” says Lucas. “How are we supposed to contact the bastards?”

All eyes go to Kun. He slows his steps and eventually stops. “They have Hendery’s earpiece,” he says finally.

“You blew up that entire network,” says Ten. “That earpiece is nothing more than a pretty accessory now.”

“But it’s still tuned to that signal,” says Xiaojun, sitting up. “If you set up another network at the same address it’ll sync up to it. We can talk to them.” _We can bargain for Hendery._

“It’s risky,” says Yangyang. “They might be able to track where the network is based, and find out where we are.” He looks to Kun for confirmation.

“Yangyang’s right,” says Kun. “Hendery was worried about that too. That’s why he wanted us to cut the line.”

“We can’t just abandon him there,” says Xiaojun. “They don’t know anything else about us or how to contact us, that earpiece is all we have. If they’re willing to give him back, we have to find a way to talk to them.”

“It could lead them back to us,” says Winwin, very quiet, almost guilty for bringing it up. 

“Then let it,” says Lucas with fire. “If they think they can take us, let them try. They caught us by surprise last time. We’ll take ’em out this time.”

“Who is _we_?” asks Ten, voice sharp. “Yangyang can barely walk, you got shot—”

“That bullet barely grazed me,” says Lucas dismissively. 

“It was a fucking bullet! You got _shot_!”

Xiaojun barely registers Ten’s continued argument with Lucas, or Winwin keeping Yangyang from getting up. His eyes are focused on Kun. Their team’s natural leader isn’t pacing anymore, instead standing still, chewing on his fingernails in the way he does only when he’s thinking hard. Xiaojun waits for an answer, knowing whatever Kun decides is what they’ll follow. 

And then, finally, Kun says, “I can do it.”

Ten shuts his mouth mid-sentence. “Do what?” he asks.

“I can open another comm channel at that same address,” says Kun. He moves to his desk, pulls out his notebook. “If the earpiece is undamaged they’ll be able to connect.”

“And they won’t be able to trace it back to us?” asks Ten. “If we house it in our server—”

“We won’t,” says Kun, grabbing his jacket from the back of his chair. “I’ll base it in one of our other safehouses, no links to the new network I’m building for us. We’ll send intermittent signals out, just brief enough so they can’t trace back without picking up.”

“If there are no links, how the hell are we supposed to know if they attempt contact?” asks Ten. He gets to his feet, and starts rooting through his own things. He finally finds his own coat and shrugs it on. “One of us has to sit there the entire time, watching the screen.”

“That’s what we’ll do,” says Kun. “We’re five, we’ll take shifts of four hours each—”

“What do you mean, five?” Yangyang cuts him off. “We’re six.”

Kun hesitates. “You should be resting…”

“You can’t be serious.” Yangyang groans and flops back onto the couch. “I’ll take first shift.”

Kun looks like he wants to argue, but gives up. “It’s still a risk,” he says. “They will be able to track the signal back to the safehouse, and if they want to kill us then whoever’s there will be a sitting duck. Is everyone okay with that?”

Five people nod.

“Then Ten and I will go and start setting it up,” says Kun. “After we’re done we’ll call Yangyang for the first shift. Winwin, Lucas, I want you tracking down all of Big Rhino’s hideouts, any place he could’ve taken Hendery.” Both Winwin and Lucas nod.

“I can help,” says Xiaojun. He’s not as quick as Kun but he is more than capable of helping set up a network, and he wants to. He wants to do anything to keep his mind distracted.

“We’ll only need two,” says Kun. He purses his lips. “I think you should get some sleep, Xiaojun.”

Xiaojun can’t argue back. He’s so tired.

Kun and Ten leave. Winwin helps Yangyang to his room, ignoring the younger man’s protests that he can move by himself. Lucas goes to the kitchen and makes himself a huge midnight meal, and then sits to eat in stony silence.

And Xiaojun goes to his room. He lies in his bed with eyes wide open, sleep the furthest thing from his mind. Every time he closes his eyes he sees Hendery pinned against the wall, exhausted and covered in blood.

He tries to tell himself he’ll be okay. Hendery has been in so many dangerous situations, and he’s come out of every single one alive. Everyone’s focused on getting him back and they’re the best at what they do. But the fear is still there, clawing at the back of Xiaojun’s brain, digging deeper with every single second.

He stares at the ceiling, and waits.

Xiaojun thinks he’s going insane. 

In the time Hendery’s been gone—Xiaojun doesn’t even know how long, it feels like days, months, years—he hasn’t done anything useful. Kun didn’t let him set up either of the networks they’re now using. Winwin refused to take him looking at Big Rhino’s possible hideouts. He took one shift with the open network before Ten insisted he leave and rest, and since then Xiaojun hasn’t been allowed another.

The others are being careful around him. He knows it, and they know he knows, but they refuse to stop. And so he sits alone in his room, useless as before, as ever, while Hendery is a captive.

If he’s alive. A part of Xiaojun whispers that Hendery is already dead, that all this is too late, that all they’ll get back is his cold corpse. And if it’s true Xiaojun knows it’s his fault. He’s supposed to guide and protect Hendery from his computer screen. He failed, and yet he’s still the one sitting safe and secure in their apartment.

Xiaojun really is going insane.

He gets out of bed, looking for something to keep his mind busy before it spirals down that dark tunnel. He opens his bedside drawer—maybe he can find something useful in the files he saved from Big Rhino’s house system to his USB drive—when something catches the lamplight, grabbing his attention.

It’s the bracelet Hendery gave Xiaojun.

He takes it out of the drawer. It’s light in his hands, the silver metal of the strap delicately made. It’s not a solid ring, he realizes now, instead made of thin interwoven chains. He didn’t realize before, too absorbed by the vibrant blue gem set in it.

He’s never worn it by himself. The day Hendery gave it to him, Xiaojun put it in his drawer and never took it out again. It made him feel uncomfortable in a way that wasn’t really uncomfortable, and he didn’t know how to feel about it. 

Sitting here on his bed now, he still doesn’t know how to feel about it. Why did Hendery even give him this? Why did he fix it on his wrist while the sun rose outside, and look at him with his gaze so warm and a smile on his face? 

Xiaojun doesn’t want to think about it. Not when Hendery is gone, and all he has is this bracelet. 

He runs his fingers over it. The metal looks less like silver and more like stainless steel the more he looks at it, and not particularly lustrous stainless steel. Unusual. Why would someone make fine jewelry in steel?

Was this Big Rhino’s? It doesn’t look like the type of accessory a mob boss would wear. It looks quite delicate actually, the gem barely fixed into the chain. Another thing that makes Xiaojun frown. The gem is obviously expensive, why would the jeweler not bother setting it with more care? It looks like it could fall off with the smallest push—

The door flies open with a bang.

Xiaojun hurriedly pockets the bracelet and looks up to see Lucas in the doorway, disheveled and panting. “Ten called,” he says.

Nausea spikes in Xiaojun’s gut. He gets to his feet. “Is it…?”

Lucas nods.

The four of them in the apartment drive to one of their many secondary bases, calling Winwin on the way. This hideout of theirs is not particularly comfortable, just a few small rooms built over a bakery that doesn’t get much business. In the middle of the front room, sitting in front of a glowing blue screen and with a headset on, is Ten.

He glances at them as they enter, and then makes eye-contact with Kun and nods. _Online,_ he mouths.

Xiaojun’s gut twists. Online. The men who took Hendery want to talk.

Kun motions to the headset, and Ten takes it off and hands it to him. He gets out of the chair, allowing Kun to take his spot and pressing a few keys as he goes.

Static spills from the speakers. Kun exchanges a tense look with everyone in the team, and then says, in a loud and clear voice, “We’ve come to talk.”

The sound on the line intensifies. Rustling and the sound of movement comes through, the steady breathing of someone holding the mic close to their lips. Xiaojun grabs Lucas’s arm and squeezes.

“Changed your mind about saving your friend’s life?”

Xiaojun lets out a sound before he can help it. He claps a hand over his mouth, but Ten gently pries it away. “They can only hear Kun,” he says quietly. “It’s okay.”

He offers his hand for support and Xiaojun takes it, gripping tight. Ten’s fingers are calming against his shaking ones.

“We need proof he’s alive,” says Kun. 

A humorless laugh emits from the speakers. “Like I’ll let you talk to him,” a man’s voice says. “I don’t want you talking in codes.”

“And I don’t want to receive a corpse instead of an operative,” says Kun calmly. “Give me proof that he’s alive.”

No reply. Xiaojun can still hear the breathing. 

“No proof, no trade,” says Kun.

Ten pulls Xiaojun back before he can go grab Kun. Xiaojun wants to shout, wants to scream and fight, but the intent look in Ten’s eyes stops him. Behind him Xiaojun can see Yangyang, sitting on the ratty couch and with the same look in his eyes. Yangyang nods slowly.

Xiaojun swallows, and forces himself to relax. Kun has this. Kun will handle this.

“So you don’t wanna trade after all?” the voice on the line barks. “You’re good with my boys cutting your pretty boy into pieces and feeding him to our dogs?” Xiaojun’s stomach turns, and he feels Lucas tense beside him. 

“We want to trade as much as you do,” says Kun, unfazed. “But we are trading for a living man. I’m sure you don’t want to lose what we’ve taken from you.”

There’s more rustling, heavier breaths and muted words from a heated conversation. Xiaojun has to fight the urge to hold his breath. What if these men don’t agree? What if they decide they don’t want to give Hendery up after all?

“So they do want the fucking drive then,” says Yangyang. Kun gives a disapproving look at his language, but can’t talk.

“We didn’t take anything else,” says Ten.

“We don’t have the drive anymore,” says Lucas.

“I made a copy before I handed it over.” 

Xiaojun whips his head around to look at Ten. “You didn’t tell us that,” he says. “We weren’t supposed to copy it.”

“I copy everything I get my hands on,” says Ten, shrugging. “Think of it as a contingency plan. And it came in handy this time, didn’t it?”

Xiaojun can’t argue with that. Ten might save Hendery with his copied drive. He kind of wants to hug Ten and his paranoid ass.

“We wanna send a video.”

Everyone’s attention snaps back to the speakers. Winwin enters the room right after, and Yangyang calls him over to explain what’s going on. Xiaojun doesn’t bother about them, attention focused on the speakers.

“Then open a video stream,” says Kun. He lets out an obvious sigh of relief, completely soundless. “This network is fully accessible to you. There should be someone on your side who can connect another device and set up a video feed.”

More rustling, and a faraway yell of “Get one of the nerds in here!” 

“That’s rude,” says Ten. 

“Man, I hate this asshole,” says Lucas. “What kind of demon feeds dogs people? Those poor dogs would be so freaked out if they knew.”

“Are you serious?” Xiaojun can’t believe what he’s hearing. “ _That’s_ why you hate him? Not because he kidnapped Hendery and could be torturing him even now?”

“Hendery’s fine,” says Lucas, almost dismissive. “He’d never let some basic loser kill him. A few bruises are nothing for him.”

Xiaojun doesn’t know what to say to that. Lucas looks so confident, so assured. Xiaojun can only hope he’s right.

It’s at that moment the asshole speaks up. “If you see us, we wanna see you,” he says. “Two-way feed.”

“That’s fair,” says Kun. Yangyang is half out of the couch when Kun raises a hand, stopping him. _Get out of view,_ he mouths to the others.

“I don’t like this,” mutters Ten, but he does as instructed. Xiaojun goes with him, standing beside Winwin at the end of the musty couch. He trusts Kun. Kun is going to handle this.

They spend a few tense minutes in silence, the only sound in the barren room coming from the rustle over the speakers and Kun’s occasional typing. And then, finally, after eons, Kun raises a hand.

It’s starting.

From his angle, Xiaojun sees the screen fill with an image.

It’s Hendery.

He’s tied to a chair, ropes around his chest and his wrists. His head is raised, and aside from a few bruises on his face and a track of dried blood running down by his eye he looks unharmed. He makes eye contact with the camera and smiles.

“Idiot,” whispers Xiaojun. Alive. Alive idiot. 

Winwin’s hand curls around Xiaojun’s wrist, but Xiaojun doesn’t move from his place, no matter how much he wants to. He can’t tear his gaze from Hendery’s face. He’s alive, alive and breathing, alive and smiling.

Alive.

The camera view shifts, leaving Hendery, and Xiaojun lets out an audible sound of loss. The new sight is much less welcoming. A big ugly face stares at him through the screen, familiar features of cruel eyes and a large, bent nose. 

It’s the man who hurt and took Hendery. Xiaojun curls his hands into fists in impotent rage.

“Happy now?” asks the man. He’s wearing the earpiece, and it only angers Xiaojun more. That’s Hendery’s. 

“Satisfied,” says Kun.

A disgusting smile spreads on the man’s face. “You all girly little boys over there?” he asks.

Yangyang hisses a few choice curses that make even Xiaojun flinch. Kun is utterly unfazed by the taunt. “When and where do you want to conduct the trade?” he asks.

“We’ll send the details later,” says the man, still smiling that smile.

“So we can walk right into an ambush?” yells Lucas. “No thanks.”

“We’ll decide on an exchange point together,” says Kun. Before the man can retort, he says, “Two hours before the drop. So that neither of us have time to set up any unpleasant surprises.”

“You argue a lot for someone bargaining for their friend’s life,” says the man.

“It hasn’t escaped my mind that I have something you want too,” says Kun. “Do you agree to my proposal?”

The smile is no longer on the man’s face, replaced instead with something much more displeased. He wasn’t expecting Kun to argue back, but he knows the condition’s fair. Xiaojun can see that much.

Finally, the man swears and growls out, “Fine.”

“Thank you,” says Kun, perfectly polite, and both Ten and Yangyang snort. “This line is always open. Contact us again when you decide to fix the time—I leave that to you.”

“How generous,” spits the man. 

Kun nods. “Until the exchange, be sure not to hurt our operative any more,” he says. “Not unless you want the drive damaged just as badly.”

There is a beat of silence, and then the man roars with laughter.

For the first time since the video feed started, Kun frowns. The nausea hits Xiaojun so hard he thinks he’s going to collapse any second now. The laughter is loud, full, digging into Xiaojun’s bones and rattling them from the inside. 

“All you fuckers talk about is the fucking drive,” says the man, finally coming down from his laughter. “Drive this, drive that. Listen, bitch. I don’t care about no fucking drive.”

Xiaojun’s knees almost give out under him. Winwin is still holding onto him, but his fingers feel like bones digging into his forearm. 

Tension is in every line of Kun’s frame. He doesn’t say anything, only waits.

“Do whatever the fuck you want with the drive,” says the man. “Give us back what you stole from the boss’s room.”

“We didn’t take anything else,” says Kun.

“Don’t lie to me,” spits the man, still grinning. “I saw your friend take it right with my own eyes. He didn’t have it on him, so you must have it. Give it to us and you can have this bastard back.”

Xiaojun can see the gears turning in Kun’s head. He hates this. It all feels like a sick game rigged against them. The man doesn’t want the drive. The six of them have nothing else to trade for Hendery’s life. A sick, cruel game where the rules are changed just when you’re so close to finally ending it.

“Of course,” says Kun, after a pause that’s just a fraction of a second too long. “You decide the time and date.”

“Two days from now, four in the afternoon,” says the man at once. 

“That’s alright for us,” says Kun, with only the briefest glance at the others.

“Good,” says the gangster. “Now show me the item.”

“I don’t have it on me at the moment,” says Kun, and Xiaojun is absolutely, completely sure he is going to throw up. “Another time.”

“Oh no, you’ll show it to me now,” growls the man. “I showed you your friend, didn’t I? All safe and sound. Now show me what I fucking need.”

Kun doesn’t move. Ten and Yangyang are whispering too low for Xiaojun to pick up any words, but the conversation is hurried and frantic. Lucas kicks the wall, swears loudly. Winwin is a statue on the couch. 

And Xiaojun. Xiaojun is dying inside.

“You’ll receive it in two days anyway,” says Kun. 

The man glares suspiciously. “You still have it, don’t you?”

“Of course,” says Kun smoothly, and Xiaojun could tear out his own hair. They don’t have it. They don’t have anything. The mission was obtaining the drive and nothing more. 

But the man isn’t convinced by Kun’s calm voice. Xiaojun can see it in those dark eyes, the way they lock onto Kun’s. And then, after a tense, nerve wracking silence, the man says, “If you don’t show it, trade’s off.”

“Let’s not be too hasty,” says Kun quickly. “You know we have the item. We’re both willing to trade.”

“Then fucking show it, or trade’s off,” says the man. 

“What does he want?” whispers Winwin. He runs both hands through his short hair. “We didn’t take anything else. Lucas, Yangyang, did you take anything else?”

“No, the mission was the damn drive,” says Lucas. “When would we even take anything? We were busy fighting his cronies. It was Hendery who went upstairs.”

Xiaojun rubs his face with both hands. It was Hendery who went upstairs. He went upstairs, into Big Rhino’s room, where he took the drive and immediately left—

In a split second, everything is obvious.

Xiaojun runs across the room before anyone can stop him. Kun’s eyes widen when he sees him, but Xiaojun doesn’t care. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the bracelet.

The blue gem glints under the light of the computer screen. The man in the feed looks at him, and then his eyes lock onto the gleaming bracelet.

“This is it, isn’t it?” asks Xiaojun, eyes fixed on the cruel face on the screen. “This is what you want.”

Kun is too stunned to repeat the question into the headset. He doesn’t need to. 

“So you did have it all this time,” says the man. A malicious smile takes over his face. “You’re the baby, then? You look like the type.”

The man’s gaze momentarily flicks away from the camera, and his smile only grows. Xiaojun’s gut churns worse than ever.

“All good,” says the man. “But I got another condition for the trade.” His cruel eyes are focused on Xiaojun. “I want you there.”

“Okay,” says Xiaojun before Kun can argue. He nods, so that the man on the screen can see him.

The smile that spreads on that ugly face sets off unease in Xiaojun’s gut, but he swallows it down. If the man wants him there, he’ll be there. As long as they give Hendery back. 

“That’s perfect,” says the man, still grinning wide. “See you in two days.”

And then the screen goes black.

Xiaojun can’t even finish his deep breath of relief before Kun slams the headset down on the table and snaps at him, “What the fuck is that?”

He’s pointing at the bracelet hanging from Xiaojun’s fingers. “I don’t know,” says Xiaojun, and that’s the truth. He thought it was an ordinary bracelet.

“How the hell did you get it?” asks Kun, voice sharp. “Why do they want it?”

“I don’t know why they want it,” says Xiaojun desperately. “I just—I guessed, because it’s from the house—”

“And where did you get it?” asks Ten. He takes the bracelet from Xiaojun’s unprotesting grip, turns it over in his fingers. “It doesn’t look expensive enough to kidnap someone over.”

“Hendery gave it to me,” says Xiaojun without thinking.

Ten shoots him a look. “Without telling us?”

“Then he knows what it is,” says Lucas. “He knows why those bastards want it so much.”

“Is it something digital?” asks Yangyang. “Like to do with hacking? Did he tell you what it’s for?”

“No, he didn’t say anything.” Xiaojun hesitates. “I think—I think he didn’t know it was special. Not _that_ special.”

“Then why did he give it to you?” asks Winwin.

Xiaojun opens his mouth, and closes it. He doesn’t know.

“Oh, my god,” groans Yangyang. “Don’t tell me the reason we’re in this mess is because he wanted to give you a fucking romantic gift.”

“No,” says Xiaojun, and he hates everything because he can feel himself blushing and he _knows_ he’s blushing and now is _really not the time_. 

Yangyang groans again and falls limp on the sofa.

“It’s obviously not some regular jewelry,” says Ten as he holds it up to the light. “Something dangerous, you think?”

“That’s not a sapphire,” says Winwin, peering at it. “That doesn’t look like any natural gemstone I’ve seen. Look how uniform the color is throughout the crystal.”

“A synthetic one,” says Ten. “It definitely has some other purpose.”

Kun releases a long, suffering sigh. “Ten, I want you to figure out what that thing is as soon as possible,” he says. “The trade is in two days, and we need to prepare.” 

“What are the chances they’ll try and kill us as soon as they have the bracelet?” asks Lucas.

“Very, very high,” says Winwin.

Lucas grins. “They can try.”

“I don’t trust that bastard,” says Ten. “That lackey of Big Hippo or whatever. Big Rhino Junior. Big Rhino number two.”

“Little Rhino,” supplies Yangyang, and Lucas howls with laughter.

The mood in the cramped room lifts for a moment before dissolving into tension once more. The blue gem in Ten’s hand glints innocently under the screen lights. 

“It’s gonna come down to a fight, you know that,” says Kun to Xiaojun. “Can you handle yourself?”

Xiaojun takes a deep breath. “Yeah,” he says. He looks at the bracelet, still in Ten’s hands. “I can do it.” 

He has no choice. It’s for Hendery, after all.

“Are you okay?”

Xiaojun nods. He’s sure if he opens his mouth he’ll throw up. 

He’s in the backseat of the nondescript black car, trying his best to stay calm. The weather is perfectly clear, bright and sunny in the afternoon with only the lightest clouds scattered across the sky. 

It’s the day of the exchange. 

Kun negotiated with Little Rhino on the exchange location two hours before, and they decided on the center of an abandoned construction project not too far from their secondary base. Winwin and Yangyang were ready in the car to drive to the spot as soon as it was confirmed. And now Xiaojun is on the way to conduct the exchange itself. 

He looks down at the blue crystal in his hand. He never imagined this small thing would be the cause of such a huge mess. It was just a pretty gem Hendery put on his wrist while they stood in their bare kitchen. Now Xiaojun is taking it to trade for Hendery’s freedom and life. 

“It’s the crystal that’s important,” said Ten the night before, when he finally got a call from one of his many contacts. “It’s not an explosive or weapon like I first thought. It’s a storage device.”

Kun’s brow furrowed. “Like the drive? What’s on it?”

“As far as I can tell, nothing yet,” said Ten. “It’s not the information that’s important, it’s the storage device itself.” He raised the blue gem, recently separated from the metal band. “This tiny crystal is a very rare, very advanced type of storage. It can hold over a million times more data than even the most advanced semiconductor-based storage device.”

Lucas whistled. “I’m guessing it’s expensive as hell.”

“You bet,” said Ten. “I couldn’t get an estimate on how much it would cost, that’s how rare it is. No wonder they’re on our asses for it. It’s worth more than probably everything we’ve ever owned.”

And now it’s in Xiaojun’s slightly damp hand.

“You don’t look okay,” says Ten. He’s in the passenger seat, sipping a goddamn iced coffee like he isn’t going to meet a violent mob boss. Unlike Xiaojun he has experience being in a fight, and used to go on field assignments before Yangyang joined the team. 

“Don’t worry, we’ve got everything under control,” says Lucas from the driver’s seat. “You know the plan?”

Xiaojun knows the plan. He’s just not sure it’ll work.

Over their earpieces, Kun speaks up. “I see three black SUVs six minutes out,” he says. He got into the traffic cams as soon as they decided on the spot, and has been tracking them through the network since they left their hideout. They decided to keep the situation lowkey and not attack their convoy on the way. 

“Idiots like this love their fucking stereotypes,” says Yangyang with a snort.

“Yangyang!”

“Their flipping stereotypes,” says Yangyang, and Xiaojun can imagine him rolling his eyes. “Happy?”

“Better,” concedes Kun, and Yangyang snorts over the comm.

Lucas turns off the paved road onto one layered with dust and gravel, further past sky rise buildings that aren’t built much past their skeletons of rod and concrete. It’s an eerie place, somehow made worse in the afternoon sunshine. Or maybe Xiaojun is so anxious everything’s setting him on edge. There are only the three of them in the car, but he still feels like there isn’t enough air. 

Xiaojun kind of wants to faint.

The car rolls to a stop with the crunching of gravel. Lucas climbs out first. “Good?” he asks.

“Your position is so not important,” says Yangyang. “Kun, where are they?”

“They passed the range of the cameras,” says Kun. “They should be there within minutes.”

“I see them,” says Winwin.

Seconds later, so does Xiaojun. Three black SUVs come down the gravel road, sending fine dust rising in the air. The first stops hardly six feet from their car, the next a few feet behind and the last one behind that. Lucas stands where he is, fearless. Ten looks behind his shoulder at Xiaojun, says “Showtime,” and climbs out of the car still holding his coffee.

 _Showtime._ Xiaojun takes one hard gulp and fixes the blue crystal back in the bracelet. Then he gets out of the car. 

Out of the first SUV, five men climb out, all double Xiaojun’s size, and four more from the second. From the remaining car, Little Rhino emerges with three other men, hard features arranged to look relaxed. He opens the back door, and then looks at Xiaojun and grins as he reaches inside and pulls a figure out.

Hendery. Xiaojun’s heart leaps to his throat and he has to swallow it down painfully. Hendery hands are tied behind his back, but he doesn’t look badly injured, and when his feet touch the ground he doesn’t collapse under his weight. He sways, off-balance, and Little Rhino rights him with a firm grip on his shoulder. 

Xiaojun keeps his eyes on Hendery as they approach. They’ve cleaned him up a bit. The blood on the side of his face is gone, and he’s wearing different clothes from before, a little oversized but otherwise decent. He’s okay. 

He looks relaxed, but Xiaojun knows it’s an act. He can see it in the way Hendery’s eyes don’t leave his. 

“That’s a lot of guys for a peaceful exchange,” mutters Ten. 

“Bet,” says Lucas, and then he calls out, “Right on time!” as he walks towards the gang men. Ten follows a step behind, confident. Xiaojun shuffles behind the two of them. 

“We’re men of our word,” says Little Rhino with an oily smile. 

“Literally fuck you,” mutters Yangyang over the comm. Shockingly, Kun doesn’t scold him.

Little Rhino cranes his neck. “There he is,” he says. He shakes Hendery by the shoulder so roughly Xiaojun feels the pain in his own bones. “Look, your baby came to save you. Shouldn’t you thank me for making it happen?”

“That’s enough small talk,” says Ten with a smile plastic enough to rival Little Rhino’s. “Give us back our operative.”

“Then give us back what’s ours,” says Little Rhino. 

Ten motions with his head, and Xiaojun steps forward.

Hendery’s calm look breaks for a fraction of a second as his eyes widen. _I’m sorry,_ thinks Xiaojun, and he wishes he could tell Hendery that, talk in his ear like he always does. _I’m sorry I came out here and put myself in danger, but I had to. For you._

“You don’t have to be so scared, _baby_ ,” drawls Little Rhino, walking forward and pushing Hendery along with him. “We’re all friends here.”

Hendery turns his head and gives the big man a look of pure ice. But he doesn’t say anything, and neither does Xiaojun. Xiaojun just keeps walking, forcing his shaky legs to carry him closer until he’s finally just a few feet from Hendery, and then he holds out the bracelet with the blue crystal set in it.

Little Rhino snatches the bracelet. He pushes Hendery forward and he stumbles, and Xiaojun has to catch him. 

“Great,” says Little Rhino, and his smile stretches from ear to ear. “See, that wasn’t so hard, was it? We’re all coming out of this friends.”

“Literally,” says Yangyang, “fuck you.”

Xiaojun isn’t paying attention. Hendery is in his arms, real and solid and _alive_ , and he wants to fall to the ground and hold him close forever.

But it’s far from over. He has Hendery, but they’re both in danger.

“Don’t try coming after us again,” says Little Rhino, heading back towards his SUV. “You got lucky catching us the night before Boss moved house. Next time we won’t play so nice.”

Xiaojun notices that although Little Rhino is going back to his car, his men don’t move. They’re standing still, tense, ready. Waiting.

Slow, Xiaojun starts backing away, back towards Lucas and Ten. Hendery goes along, only lightly leaning on him. Xiaojun refuses to let him go, hyper aware of all the goons’ eyes on them, how open a target Hendery is with his body half draped over Xiaojun’s. 

“Now?” asks Yangyang.

“Not yet,” says Kun. “Until he’s closer. Hold.”

“They’re gonna start shooting any second now,” murmurs Lucas, so low Xiaojun can just hear him over the earpiece. 

“They won’t,” says Kun. “Not until they’re certain the crystal is secure. _Hold_.”

Little Rhino dangles the bracelet in front of his face, and then easily pops the crystal out of its steel base. “You were smart giving this back to us,” he says, pulling open the door to the car. “It’s too bad about this whole thing, really. But you shouldn’t have tried us in the first place. Think of this as a last, important lesson.” He grins and motions to his men.

“Whee,” says Winwin.

The car explodes in a supernova of orange flame and flying shrapnel. 

Everything after that is chaos. The roar of the explosion rings in Xiaojun’s ears, along with the thunder of close gunfire. He flings himself behind the cover of their car, carrying Hendery along with him, shielding his body with his own. 

Xiaojun’s hearing returns to the sound of Ten cursing up a storm in a variety of languages. “I dropped my coffee,” he says. “That shit was artisanal and I dropped it!”

“It was a damn iced coffee,” yells Lucas over the cacophony of continued gunfire. It lulls for a second, and he raises his head and fires a few quick shots before ducking down again.

“Iced coffee can’t be artisanal,” says Yangyang with a cackle over the comm. “You were scammed.”

“Shut up,” snaps Ten. He glares up at the half constructed building Yangyang is set up in with his sniper rifle, and then straightens to shoot a few times, Lucas jumping up with him to join. It only lasts a few seconds before they duck again under sustained gunfire. 

Xiaojun gets up, being sure to stay behind cover of the car as he fumbles with the knife in his pocket. The ropes on Hendery’s wrists are thick, and it takes work to cut through them.

“What are you doing here?”

“Cutting you free,” says Xiaojun, refusing to look up into Hendery’s eyes. He’ll break down if he does that, and now is not the time.

“Xiaojun.” Hendery’s voice is rough. “You shouldn’t have come.”

“He said I had to, or he wouldn’t give you up,” says Xiaojun. He keeps his gaze fixed on the slowly fraying rope. 

“I know,” says Hendery, and his voice is uncharacteristically quiet. “He wanted to—to hurt me. He knew where I was weak.”

Xiaojun swallows. The rope finally snaps, and Hendery’s hands come free. He rolls from his side onto his back, grimacing as he stretches his arms. Without thinking Xiaojun rubs his hands over Hendery’s wrists, avoiding the stretches of broken and raw skin. 

“Are you hurt?” he asks quietly.

Hendery shakes his head. 

“Yangyang,” barks Ten. “Tell me you took out at least some of them.”

“I told you I wasn’t a trained sniper, and I had like a half hour to set up,” says Yangyang. “This angle is shit. I got two dead. We got two more injured, but it’s just a matter of time before they get up and start shooting again.”

“They parked too close to our car,” says Winwin. “If you guys back up a bit, I can launch another explosive.” 

“Back up? How?” yells Ten. “I don’t know if you haven’t noticed, but they’re shooting at us!”

“What’s the situation?” asks Kun. 

“Little Rhino is very dead,” says Winwin calmly. “Two other men also went down with the blast and are dead or dying.”

“So we’ve got…” Lucas counts on his fingers. “Way too many left.”

“Eight living,” says Xiaojun. “Three hurt.” He puts an arm around Hendery, pulls him into a sitting position.

“They’ll start circling us soon,” says Lucas. “Then we’re really fucked.”

“The blast threw them off,” says Winwin. “That’s the only reason they haven’t yet.”

“I see them, they’re getting ready to flank,” says Yangyang. “I got—oh, shit.”

“What?” asks Ten. “Yang?”

“This building has no fucking walls,” says Yangyang. “I’ve been made.”

Xiaojun doesn’t bother telling him to get down—he knows Kun has that covered. What he’s worried about is if someone decides to go take Yangyang on up close. It hasn’t even been a week since his rib fracture. 

“What’s going on?” asks Hendery. “What happened to Yangyang?”

“He’s in that building,” says Ten with a sharp jerk of his head. “One of those bastards saw him.”

“One is trying—no, he’s going in the building after Yangyang,” reports Winwin. “The ones left, they’re reloading—”

Lucas darts out. Before Xiaojun can react Ten does the same, going the opposite direction. More gunshots sound in the air, bouncing off the walls of the buildings of rod and bare concrete. 

“Oh, my god,” says Xiaojun, and his arms tighten around Hendery. He can hear panting over the earpiece, and he doesn’t know if it’s Lucas, or Ten, or even Xiaojun himself. “Fuck, fuck, fuck—”

“Baby, calm down,” says Hendery, voice low. “Ten and Lucas can take care of themselves.”

“That’s what I thought about you!” cries Xiaojun. “And then you got beat up and kidnapped!”

“Hey, I’m alive now, aren’t I?” says Hendery, and he smiles, so bright and beautiful that for a moment Xiaojun forgets everything else. And then he says, “Do you have a gun?”

“No,” says Xiaojun. “I was just supposed to get you under cover. We didn’t know so many would come, Kun told them we were only three—”

“ _Ten, move_!” yells Winwin, the loudest Xiaojun has ever heard him. Seconds later there is another boom, smaller than the first but enough to shake the ground under Xiaojun.

“Okay, this will have to do,” says Hendery, taking the knife from Xiaojun’s grip.

Before Hendery can move, Xiaojun grabs him again. “You can’t be serious!” he screams. “You’re hurt, you can’t go out there—”

“Baby, I promise, I’ll be fine,” says Hendery, freeing himself gently. “You stay here and make sure you’re safe, okay?”

Xiaojun opens his mouth to protest, but Hendery flashes a bright, blinding smile. And then he’s gone.

Stupidly, Xiaojun raises his head past the cover of the car to assess the situation. Neither Ten nor Lucas are in sight. The wreckage of the car is still smouldering, and Xiaojun can see three bodies laid out near it, all burned black to varying degrees. He suppresses a heave and scans the rest of the area. There are two bodies with half their heads a mass of red sprayed across the ground—Yangyang’s work. A short distance away are two more men, one slowly bleeding out from what looks to be a knife to the ribs, another with a broken neck. A small patch of earth is burned black from a minor explosives charge, and scattered around it are bits of gore and flesh Xiaojun can’t look too long at. Everything looks different when he’s there in person, not sitting behind a screen. So much realer, and sharper, so many sensations all attacking him at once—the stench of burned flesh in his nose, the echoes of the gunshots, the spatter of vibrant red blood across the gravel. 

Four men are still standing. None of them are shooting, but two have their guns trained on one of the remaining SUVs. The other two stand at attention, glancing from the car Xiaojun is huddled behind to the building Yangyang took his shots from, and then again to the building opposite Winwin is holed up in.

Hendery is nowhere to be seen. He’s creeping up along the other side of the car, Xiaojun knows. He only has a knife after all, he needs to get in close to do any kind of damage and it looks like the gangsters have all reloaded. 

Xiaojun really hates Hendery sometimes. It’s like he lives to give him anxiety.

“Stay down,” says Kun over the comm. “Yangyang’s taken care of the guy who went after him. Ten and Lucas are taking cover behind their cars. Winwin can’t do any more damage without hurting any of you from where he is, so he’s coming down as backup. Where’s Hendery? I can’t get a visual on him.”

“He is busy being an idiot,” hisses Xiaojun. He wants to scream, but with the gunfire momentarily ceased the air is eerily quiet, and he can’t risk drawing attention to Hendery. He switches to the shared channel and asks, “Is everyone okay?”

“Lucas got fucking shot again,” says Ten. “And I’m pretty sure I’ve broken something, thanks Winwin—”

“I told you to move!” 

“—but otherwise I’m okay,” finishes Ten without missing a beat. “I don’t have any bullets left. Lucas has a couple, but he’s also bleeding pretty bad.”

“I’m fine,” says Lucas, but he’s breathing heavily. That’s not a good sign. “It’s just a bullet.”

“Xuxi, I swear to god I will kill you right now,” says Ten.

Lucas gasps. “You used my government name!”

“And I will put you in government morgue if you don’t shut up—”

“I’m alive,” says Yangyang. “I can’t move but I’m alive and okay.”

Kun takes a breath so deep Xiaojun can hear him through the earpiece. “Alright, we can do this,” he says. “Everyone just stop and think it through—”

A single shot goes off. One of the men goes down.

Everything happens at once after that. The men scatter, shooting as they go. Xiaojun catches a glimpse of Winwin behind a stack of crates and cement at the base of the nearby building before he dives back in under cover. Ten comes up briefly and fires a shot, ducking as two men fire at him. One man is shooting at Winwin, two at where Ten and Lucas are hidden, and the other whirls around until he makes eye contact with Xiaojun. 

In a flash of black Hendery darts out. The man stumbles back, caught off guard, and fires a shot. Xiaojun doesn’t know if he hit him, but Hendery doesn’t slow down. He slashes at the man with the knife and the other evades, but Hendery grabs the wrist holding the gun and twists. Xiaojun can half imagine hearing that crunch in his earpiece like he always does during missions. The gangster drops the gun.

Hendery takes the opportunity to attack again. But he’s slow. Xiaojun can track his movements even from where he’s crouched behind the car, and the man avoids the attack easily. He makes a grab for the knife, and his huge hand closes around Hendery’s wrist as the two of them grapple. 

This is not the plan. This is so far from the plan and Xiaojun doesn’t know what to do. He’s here but he’s just as useless as ever, cowering in hiding while everyone else is in danger, while Hendery is out and in danger again.

One of the other gangsters notices the scuffle. Everything seems to move in slow motion as he turns and starts towards the two fighting men, gun in hand. 

Xiaojun doesn’t think. He runs.

He hears more gunshots, but they barely register. He barrels right into the man he’s targeting, and with his momentum manages to knock him down to the ground, Xiaojun falling on top of him. 

Xiaojun gets up and finds himself face to face with an ugly, snarling face. He freezes. He did not think this through at all. His eyes focus on the gun and something clicks in his brain, and he scrambles for it. 

The man under him is winded but not injured, and much stronger than him. The bigger man grabs the gun but can’t get a good angle to shoot. Xiaojun refuses to let go. He is not going to let this man shoot Hendery, or any of his friends. 

The goon gets one of his hands free and jams his elbow into Xiaojun’s face. Blinding pain explodes in Xiaojun’s head. His grip loosens on the gun, and the big man throws him off and down into the hard gravel. Xiaojun gasps a breath, and sharp, biting pain spreads through his ribcage from his back, before it bursts again around his cheek and mouth. The gangster is on top of Xiaojun now, fist pulled back to deliver another blow and mouth set into a furious grimace. Xiaojun struggles but he’s pinned, and he’s too weak to throw off the man’s immense weight, disoriented from the hits and the pain.

In one fierce movement, the man rocks back and punches Xiaojun again. And then he switches the gun from his left hand to his right, and aims. Xiaojun stares up through his blurred vision, unable to move.

And then the grimace on the man’s face slides off. His features go lax, eyes blank. 

He falls limp on top of Xiaojun.

The weight knocks out whatever air remained in Xiaojun’s lungs. He struggles to push the limp body off him, finally shoving the heavy limbs off and rolling out from underneath, gasping for air. Every breath sets his face and chest afire, but it’s so worth it. 

Before Xiaojun can remember where he is and what he was doing before he got hit in the face repeatedly, arms go around him and hold him tight.

“What was that?” someone whispers. “Why would you do that? You’re supposed to stay safe, you’re not supposed to get hurt.”

Hendery. It’s Hendery. Xiaojun relaxes and lets his head rest on his shoulder. “I’m okay,” he says. His mouth tastes of blood, and he swallows. “I’m okay.” 

Hendery doesn’t say anything, only holds him in silence. It’s unusual for him, and Xiaojun decides he doesn’t mind. 

It’s too long before Xiaojun remembers where they are. He hurriedly pulls free and looks around, half expecting a bullet in the chest or another big gangster ready to punch him in the face. But nothing happens. 

All the gang men are on the ground, most of them down and unmoving, some groaning weakly. Winwin goes from one dying man to the next, his knife used with deadly precision. Lucas stands a few feet away from Xiaojun, poking at a body with a foot while his upper left thigh bleeds profusely. He’s leaning on Ten, and it’s almost funny to see his tall, built frame being supported by Ten’s much smaller one. Ten grimaces in pain, hand pressed to his side, but when he makes eye contact with Xiaojun he smiles.

“That was a really stupid thing you did, running out totally unarmed,” he says. “You’re lucky you’re alive.” He pauses. “But good job.”

“What happened?” asks Xiaojun. “There were four guys, you’re hurt and you—you didn’t have bullets and—”

“You drew everyone’s attention when you came out running,” says Lucas. “Super awesome, by the way, that took balls. Anyway, it was enough for Winwin to shoot another guy and Hendery to stab the one he was fighting, and then me and Ten came out and took out the one on us.”

“And of course Hendery killed the guy who hit you,” says Ten.

Xiaojun turns to Hendery. “Thanks,” he says. 

Hendery just shrugs.

The stinging in his face and chest refuses to subside, but it gets to a point where Xiaojun can think through them. “Wait,” he says. “How did I draw everyone’s attention? I just ran out and tackled a guy.”

“Oh.” Ten’s face splits into a huge grin. “You were screaming. Like, really loud.”

“No I wasn’t,” says Xiaojun. 

“Oh, no, you totally were,” says Lucas, grinning. “I heard you. We all heard you. Hell, I’m pretty sure Yangyang heard you from the seventh floor.”

“I did,” says Yangyang over the comm.

Xiaojun looks around at four faces staring at him, Ten and Lucas grinning wildly, Winwin chuckling behind a hand. Hendery starts laughing.

“Shut up,” snaps Xiaojun, trying to ignore the heat in his face to go along with the pain. 

“You sounded great,” says Hendery, in between his laughter. “Perfect falsetto or whatever you call it—”

“ _Shut up_!”

“Hey, don’t make fun of him,” says Kun. “He saved you guys, even if he did short out my headset.” Ten and Lucas start laughing too. 

“Can someone come up and get me?” asks Yangyang. At least he’s not laughing, though that might be because of the injured rib. “I can’t walk and I really don’t wanna drag myself down seven flights of stairs.”

“Winwin, if you wouldn’t mind,” says Kun. “I’m coming with the van to pick you all up.”

Hendery gets to his feet and helps Xiaojun up. Xiaojun’s ribs still ache, and he grimaces as he stretches. Hendery looks him over a second, like he just wants to make sure he’s okay, and then he walks over to the quickly diminishing flaming wreckage that was Little Rhino’s car. Xiaojun follows.

The mob boss is, as Winwin put it, very dead. The blast hit him at close range after all, and it’s a grisly sight. The only way Xiaojun knows it’s him is because of the position of the various body pieces. Not even his clothes survived. 

“Who got him?” asks Hendery. 

“Winwin set off the explosion,” says Xiaojun, keeping his eyes fixed on the building ahead, fighting the bile rising in his throat. 

Hendery hums. “That sucks,” he says, and then he bends down close to the body. Xiaojun doesn’t see what he does, too busy trying not to heave, but he helps Hendery straighten a few seconds later. 

“It doesn’t look so pretty anymore, sorry.”

“What?” says Xiaojun, and then he sees what’s in Hendery’s hand. It’s the steel bracelet, covered in black soot and dirt and who knows what else.

“Looks like the explosion knocked the jewel away somewhere,” says Hendery. “But it’s still in one piece and that’s pretty cool right?”

Winwin walks over and starts sifting through the bits of gravel and Little Rhino, completely unfazed. He stands up with the blue crystal in hand, which he hands over to Ten.

“The heat probably destroyed the storage capability,” he says. “Should I take it? It’s still pretty.”

“Leave it,” says Kun. “Even if it does still work we have no possible buyers, so it’s useless to us. Whoever finds it and can make it work is welcome to it. I don’t want us being targeted for a thing we can’t pass off.”

“But Kun, it would look so good hanging off my ear,” complains Ten. Whatever Kun says in reply he says on their personal channel, because Ten gasps, looking both scandalized and amused.

Xiaojun’s attention is taken by a tap on the shoulder. “It doesn’t look as good as it did before,” says Hendery, smiling, “but it’s still yours and I think you would make it look good.”

Xiaojun looks down at the offered bracelet—the bracelet they went through all this pain over—and then back up at Hendery, and something in him snaps.

“Are you crazy?” he screams. “What are you doing? You almost died because of that stupid thing and you _want me to wear it_?”

“You could’ve just said no,” says Hendery, taken aback, but there’s no stopping Xiaojun now. 

“All you do is get yourself in trouble,” he says, and he feels like he’s filled with fire from the inside and it’s all spilling out. “You get yourself kidnapped and I worry half to death and then we have to save you and you just smile and charge into a gunfight with a knife. A knife! And for a _stupid bracelet_?”

“Hey, it’s not like I got kidnapped on purpose,” says Hendery, and, infuriatingly, he’s still grinning. “And I’m alive and okay, so everything’s alright, isn’t it?”

Xiaojun screams in wordless rage. 

And then he grabs Hendery and kisses him. 

He isn’t thinking when he does it. He isn’t thinking when he takes Hendery’s face in his hands, and then slides his hands around to bury his fingers in his hair. He’s definitely not thinking when Hendery puts his arms around his waist and tugs him closer. 

“Can someone _please_ come and take me down from here?”

Xiaojun and Hendery both jump apart. Before Xiaojun can say anything Lucas and Ten burst into laughter, falling over themselves with it. Lucas even whistles, making the heat rising in Xiaojun’s face shoot up at the speed of light. 

“Guys, just… wait until I come pick you up,” says Kun with a tired sigh. “Winwin, please get Yangyang down. Everyone else, let’s freak out at home.”

“That sounds like a great idea,” says Xiaojun, already walking away and ready to pretend like the last few seconds did not happen. He did not—with Hendery—in front of _everyone—_

Hendery grabs his wrist before he can go. Xiaojun turns to him, sure his face must be firetruck red and knowing Hendery is going to tease him for it.

But Hendery doesn’t. He holds Xiaojun’s wrist with both hands, and easily puts on it the dirty but still intact steel bracelet. And then he looks at Xiaojun and smiles.

Xiaojun blinks at him, stunned, and finds himself smiling back.

“Camera on the outer edge of the compound up ahead. Stick to the wall on your right.”

“I see it. Should I shoot it down?”

“No! Kun is disabling it right now.”

Hendery grumbles. “You never let me have any fun, babe.”

“Why is destroying things so fun for you?” says Xiaojun, but he’s grinning.

From across the room Kun says, “Cameras disabled.”

Xiaojun receives a hum in response on the personal channel, and Hendery moves forward. It’s a brief mission, an in-and-out job planting evidence in a congressman’s second home. Not much surveillance, no armed goons, no fighting. Simple. 

Lucas is still limping from a bullet being dug out of his leg—despite his insistence that he’s fine—and Yangyang is nursing healing ribs, so Ten accompanies Hendery as backup. It’s Ten who curses under his breath as they’re scaling the fence at the back of the luxury apartment complex and says, “Xiaojun, can you tell your boyfriend to shut up? He keeps humming under his breath and it’s driving me crazy.”

“Not my boyfriend,” says Xiaojun, but a smile pulls at the corners of his mouth. 

He waits until they’re over the concrete fence before he switches to his personal channel with Hendery. “Ten says you hum too much, baby,” he says.

Hendery laughs. “I heard. Do you hate it too?”

“You’ll just do it more if I say yes,” says Xiaojun, grinning to himself.

“Why do you know me so well?” asks Hendery. He’s in view of the complex’s surveillance system, and Xiaojun can almost see the smile on his face. 

Absentmindedly Xiaojun’s fingers go to the bracelet on his left wrist. It’s not very expensive or fancy, made of stainless steel instead of silver and very obviously missing a stone that should be set in the middle of it, but Xiaojun can’t bring himself to stop wearing it. He does make it look good.

“It’s my job,” he says, smiling.

He hears Kun on the line with Ten, discussing entering the building and going up to the twelfth floor while evading the guards on their rounds, but he’s only half listening. Hendery’s on his computer screen and he looks excited. 

“Babe, I’m gonna do something really cool,” says Hendery. “Watch.”

“Something really cool, or something really stupid?” asks Xiaojun. 

“Same thing.” 

“You are not doing something stupid just to show off!” Xiaojun says a little too loudly into the headset. “You’re just going in, leaving the envelope and getting out, do you understand me?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” says Hendery quickly. “Going in, leaving the thing, getting out. Listening to everything you tell me over the comm and not putting myself in danger in any way at all. Okay?”

Xiaojun huffs a breath. “Okay.”

“So…” says Hendery slowly, and Xiaojun can hear the smile in his voice. “You’re watching, right?” 

This time Xiaojun has to grin, shaking his head with a laugh. “Yeah, babe,” he says. “I’m watching.” 

Hendery turns until he catches sight of the camera, and grins right at it, just for Xiaojun. Xiaojun just smiles at the screen and leans back to watch his man at work. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every material has two bands: the conduction band and the valence band. In semiconductors there is a tiny space between these bands—a small positive current is enough to jump it—but it's because of this space that all electronic devices run. This is the band gap. 
> 
> Thank you for giving this fic a try and i hope you enjoyed it!! It was a lot of fun writing this au, i really did fall in love with it ^^;;

**Author's Note:**

> You may ask, alette, aren't you an engineering major? why don't you know shit about tech?  
> To which i answer, literally do not look at me i am dumb
> 
> Thank you for reading! If you'd like to talk, and i am open to talking about anything (except my poor tech research) then you can reach me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/alette_star), [tumblr](https://alette-stars.tumblr.com/), or [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.qa/alette_star) ^^ i hope you liked this story and thank you ♡


End file.
